North Carolina’s Oldest Roads

"North Carolina’s Oldest Roads" will be presented by Tom Magnuson, founder and president of the Trading Path Association on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at 4 p.m. in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room on the 2nd floor of Jackson Library at UNC Greensboro.

This presentation is made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Martha Blakeney Hodges Reading Room at UNCG’s Jackson Library displays two early and historic maps of North Carolina, the Collet map of 1770 and the Mouzon map of 1775. These maps indicate the presence of the Trading Path from the Eno River near present-day Durham to the Yadkin River west of present-day Winston-Salem. Tom Magnuson, president of the Trading Path Association, has spent much time mapping and documenting the course of the Trading Path from its historical remains in the landscape of the Piedmont. He will discuss colonial and early American trade routes in the area, and share insight about how and why our contemporary roads sometimes follow the old routes. The close historical relationship of roads and trade routes will be discussed.

The event is free and open to the public.